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A cool toned, velvety smokey eye for occasions where you want to look glamorous but still neutral and classic 🙂 This kind of makeup suits all eye colours, all skintones and all ages – just modify the intensity to suit your preferences!

NB: Under strong lighting, the Stila shadows bounce light and look transparent and patchy. They appeared perfectly even and opaque in natural light as visible in the photos, it’s puzzling. Just something to note if you work in a studio environment 🙂

Final Look

The Little Black Dress of Makeup – Smokey Eye Tutorial

Nail Polish I’m wearing in this tutorial

Marc Jacobs Enamoured

Complete List of Products

Benefit – Stay Don’t Stray in Light/Medium*

SUQQU – Brow Powder in Moss Green

Stila – Eyes are the Window Mind Palette

Rouge Bunny Rouge – Eye Kohl in Salome*

Sunday Riley – Start Over Eye Cream

Viseart – 01 Corrector Camouflage Palette

It Cosmetics – Transforming Pearl (Naturally Pretty Palette)

Shu Uemura – Drawing Pencil in Black

Pixi – Silky Eye Pencil in Black Cocoa

THREE – Performance Eyeliner in 05

House of Lashes – Siren Lash

MAC – Extended Play Gigablack Lash

Koh Gen Do – Aqua Foundation in 213*

Rouge Bunny Rouge – Diaphanous Finishing Powder*

Kevyn Aucoin – Sculpting Powder in Medium

Shiseido – High Beam White (WT905)

MAC – Mineralize Blush in Dainty

Urban Decay – Lipliner in Illegal

Tom Ford – Lipstick in Nude Vanille

 

If there was anything that could go wrong in filming, it went wrong this day 🙁 A lot of people requested the look on Instagram so I suppressed my perfectionist compulsions and uploaded it anyway. I hope you enjoyed it 🙂

xxkarima

 

* denotes products sent for consideration. I only feature products that I love.

 

Complete list of products mentioned

Start Over Eye Cream
Start Over Eye Cream
Eyes are the Window Mind Palette
Eyes are the Window Mind Palette
Extended Play Gigablack Lash
Extended Play Gigablack Lash
Drawing Pencil
Drawing Pencil
Aqua Foundation
Aqua Foundation
Stay Don’t Stray Primer
Stay Don’t Stray Primer
Naturally Pretty Palette
Naturally Pretty Palette
High Beam White
High Beam White
Endless Silk Eye Pencil
Endless Silk Eye Pencil
Mineralize Blush
Mineralize Blush
Neutral Palette
Neutral Palette
Lip Color
Lip Color
* Denotes products sent for consideration. I’m always honest with my reviews :)

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  1. Loved this tutorial. The finished look was great.

    Quick question, what did you use to curl your hair at the end of the video? Thanks.

  2. Karima – thank you so much for this vid. i have always struggled with blending my transition shades. watching you in this vid, i think i am putting too much pressure on my brush when i blend. you use such a light touch and i was using a bit more pressure. also i have smallish eyes and not much eye space. :-/
    also – true story – when i saw the finished look before watching the vid i said “super flattering lip color!” and then you mentioned how you always get compliments!! haha! xoxo sj

    1. Hey SJ,
      A good way to lighten your pressure without thinking about it is holding the end of the brush.
      Funny that about the lip colour, I sometimes think it can look a bit blank on me (which is why I tend to use it over a deeper lipliner!).
      xx

  3. You used the Stila Mind palette? I’ve been on the hunt for that one. Very anxious to know how you felt about it. Also I can´t resist a glamorous sophisticated smokey eye tutorial! Can´t wait to get home and watch the video.

  4. Yay a chatty video lol such a gorgeous look! I love smokey eye looks but I feel like my eyes are too big to pull it off. 🙁

    1. Hmm interesting, I generally find that big eyes hold a smokey eye well! Do you put black eyeliner in the waterline? You may also opt for a smaller shadow placement (i take mine high up because that’s the only way it’s visible when my eyes are open).
      xx

  5. I do love a classic smokey eye, so it’s good to have this tutorial as a guide – you make it look achievable, even for me!
    I also have stupidly long lower lashes and I usually end up with flakes and smudges under my eyes by mid-afternoon – how does the MAC mascara hold up?
    xx

    1. It’s actually pretty easy, just step away from the mirror a few times so you can judge the intensity with a fresh eye.
      I generally don’t suffer with smudging or migration but for what it’s worth, the MAC mascara requires an oil to remove so it must be long wearing!
      x

  6. Karima I love how interactive you are with people leaving comments. Its hard to come by. ( remember seeing this as a pet peeve on your “how to run a blog”post ). The connection with the writer makes it so much better for us readers.
    Hugs

  7. ooh so chic! I’ve noticed you’ve been using the Shu Uemura for tightlining quite a bit in recent videos. If you were to do a tighliner smack down, would the Drawing Pencil fare well?

    1. Hey Isabelle,
      I actually REALLY want to do a tightlining smackdown. It’s next on my list! The Shu pencils would fare well, they’re definitely long lasting but perhaps not the most indelible tightlining product in my collection.
      xx

  8. Random, BUT: for a minute I forgot you had that black line in your eye, and I freaked out. “Holy shit, she dropped a false eyelash in her eye, how does that not hurt?!?!” And then I remembered and felt like an idiot. T___T

  9. this look is so boss. i tried it on myself, despite usually getting an i-just-got-punched-in-the-face result with smokey eye tutorials, and it was perfect. tried it on a friend who is a bride-to-be, and we are doing it as her wedding makeup in the fall! thanks so much. would love to see another look with this stila palette. xo